


Greater Unknowns

by thisonetraveler



Category: The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Genre: (same for Yocheved actually... but I'll keep the tag for her), Adoptee, Adoptive family, Betrayal, Family, Family Dynamics, Gen, Miriam and Aaron are mentioned (so is Rameses) but they don't appear in the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 16:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7900000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisonetraveler/pseuds/thisonetraveler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to be "chosen," adoptees must first be "unchosen."  Having never been told he was adopted, Moses grew up with secrets and lies, and without the knowledge that he'd lost his first mother and siblings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greater Unknowns

When Moses was a child, his mother would tell him about the day he was born.  How everyone celebrated the arrival of the new prince of Egypt.  He’d stand with his arms propped on her knees, his head tipped towards her.

“Tell it again,” he would press.

Tuya smiled, and indulged her small son’s request.

He spent his days with his brother, careening around the palace.

“Second born, second place.”  Or so Rameses’ taunting refrain went.  His way of rebuilding his ego, since their father cut him down so often.

But, second born, first-rate charmer.  Moses could still talk Rameses into completing any dare.

Walking shoulder to shoulder, both boys’ faces seemed permanently emblazoned with devilish grins.

—

Moses had been running after the Midian girl that night.  Until a crash of pottery near his feet broke his gaze, and broke more besides.

Now he wondered.  How could he have missed it?  The way his mother glanced off to the side whenever he asked what it was like when she felt him kick.

Maybe he did see it.  Caught a note in her voice as it fell flat.  Maybe that was why he insisted on hearing the story of his birth.  Again and again.  After all, didn’t everyone wish that fairy tales were true?

A gulf was wrenched open inside his heart.

Sliding a hand beneath his wig, Moses scrunched tufts of hair between his fingers.  He pictured the two slaves who claimed to be his sister and brother, trying to find features that matched— 

People said he and Rameses had the same laugh.

With this thought, Moses shut his eyes and squeezed his fingers, raising them slightly away from his head, feeling the strands strain at their roots.

But… _But._  Maybe he _always_ had a feeling.  Like a melody with no words.  He knew, and he knew nothing.  Tears overtook him then, a raw sob erupting from some unreachable place, past his heart.

He knew everything.  And he knew nothing.  His mother had held him, kissed him, told him stories.  Lied to him.  And before _her_ … an unreachable person, past his heart.  How could he miss someone he never knew?  Another cry gathered in that deep place.

He had no words, no satisfying answers.  The cry rose, but he forced it down, down, back to where it came.

They’d left this unknown.  Surely they expected him to do the same.


End file.
